I Always Hated
by Xeen Cyr
Summary: Olivia wakes up but she can't call Peter for help...


**I Always Hated…**

_No __copyright inFRiNGEment intended.  
Note: __OMG, last night was the best episode EVER!! I had to come back to the intro scene… Spoilers for _Bad Dreams_. Hope you enjoy it ;)_

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

She woke up with a start and immediately got out of bed.

That was impossible. It was a dream but it felt so real, so… impossible. She cursed, annoyed that her head was still fuzzy with sleep and horrendous images.

She squinted, at a loss for words. She remembered the contact of her hands on the young mother's jacket right before she gave her that push to her death. And the stroller? Could it be the one from that old black and white movie she watched on TCM the other night… what was it? _Potemkin_? Her mind worked in odd ways lately. Whatever she dreamed, if falling asleep meant strange encounters with mythical creatures or the remote possibility of hurting people, she was never going to be able to go to sleep again without the light on.

She had to call Peter. He'll find a way to help her. Except that she could not. Rachel had switched off that one light, the only light she could rely upon when she was awake.

She checked her alarm clock and went to the other side of the apartment to close her sister's door. It was too early to go to work, it was hardly dawn. It was way too early to put up with Ella's endless chattering. So she went through her morning routine, some serious jogging in the park, some basic gym, a cold shower, picking up one of her dozen pantsuits out of her closet, brewing a pot of coffee.

She hated that. She hated that she could not find the strength to forgive her sister and call the Bishops, and be allowed to find some weird explanation that would fit right in with her weird dream. Walter could do that sort of things for you. To be honest, she hated that she could not call Peter. But Rachel had ruined it for her, Rachel, her only sister and that same sister who knew that she always had a hard time forging bonds and opening up to people. Rachel must have known that for some reason, that jack-of-all-trades, that misfit, that con artist was probably the closest thing to a soul mate she had encountered in years. Even Lucas, well, --even John, they were not even close to being what Peter meant to her right now. And Rachel had ruined it. She was not even divorced, and yet she was barging in into her life and destroying its fragile balance on a mere whim. As she repeatedly did it before.

She poured herself some coffee and got engulfed in her work. Going through the necessary paperwork was always soothing for her. But not on this particular morning, it was not. It was just the opposite. After what she'd dreamt/experienced/lived, whatever it was, her mind was going on an endless spin, trying to find the missing sign, that shred of evidence that would make her believe that she was off the hook. She was not missing a clue, it was just a bad dream, and she was trying to hard.

She shrugged off the possibility of being the next Jean Grey with a smirk and smiled. If she was Grey, Walter and William Bell were Magneto and Xavier or the other way round, so what did it make Peter? Cyclops? Wolverine?

At some point, she mulled over calling Peter, but decided against it. At some point, she left the kitchen and put on her coat to go to the Bishops. Her hand was already on the doorknob but she tossed the keys back inside the basket near the front door and went back to her seat in the kitchen and to her lonely watch. She finally switched on the television and set about crosswording herself to oblivion until it was considered a decent time to go to the Fringe Division. She dozed on and off, fighting crude images of that young mother being pushed in front of the train. She could have sworn she did it. But how? And most importantly why?

"I always hated you could do that," said Rachel, startling her awake.

For god's sake, how many times was she supposed to wake up this morning before she could erase that gruesome scene from her head?

"I always hated that you could date two guys at the same time," she snapped back involuntarily.

As planned, Rachel did not register the intended pun.

"Really, Liv?" she retrieved the empty coffee pot from the counter. "What time did you wake up? Are you okay?" she asked.

But Olivia knew it was only a figure of speech and did not even bother to answer. Her niece was babbling about gruesome dead things being put inside her body. Was it possible that her dreams could be a side effect of having been treated with Cortexiphan? She let out a sigh of relief. Cortexiphan had probably a way of making her dreams feel more vivid or real.

"Gruesome?" she smiled. "That's a good word."

….. _And in other news, a suicide on the New York subway system last night got rush hour off to a slow start this morning. Risa Pears, a New York City school teacher and mother of an 18-month-old daughter flung herself in front of an oncoming train last night while returning home from the circus. Subway service between_...

She blinked in denial at the picture of the young woman on her TV screen.

She had to call Peter.


End file.
